Fanagrams

Riverview Ramble

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Liza Blue

When I was a teenager in the 1960s, an invitation to the Riverview Ramble was most coveted. This was some sort of charity fundraiser, and a ticket allowed you unlimited access to all of the attractions at the Riverview Amusement Park, located along the Chicago River. A group of hardy parents would load the kids in the back and way back seats of the car, and take a picnic down to Riverview. The first thing that you saw as you entered was the enormous billboard cut out of Aladdin looming over his castle, which was some sort of fun house with misshapen mirrors and hidden passageways. By today’s standards, Aladdin would be considered offensively politically incorrect. He was drawn to look suspiciously middle eastern, with a jaundiced skin tone, long black hair and a big single gold earring. And then the piece de resistance were his almond shaped and heavily lidded eyes, which mechanically moved back and forth to create a shiftless and menacing impression.

My recollection was that the parents would set up a central meeting place at picnic table caked with decades of greasy grime. A gingham plastic tablecloth was snapped into place and the parents settled into an evening of drinking and smoking. We had to sit there fidgeting until we had eaten some forgettable dinner and were given permission to take off. I distinctly remember one mother who wore brilliantly bright red lipstick at all times. The lipstick was everywhere, on her teeth, the butt of her cigarette, the end of her sandwich and most unpleasantly smeared on the glistening white of a half eaten hard boiled egg. I think my aversion to lipstick dates to that time.

Once freed, we raced off to stand in line for such rides as the Bobs, the Flying Turns, the Wild Mouse, the Rotor, the Pair-O-Chutes and some sort of splash ride. I avoided the splash ride because it looked like you would be splashing down in to a pool of rancid and dank water, filled with the debris of a summer’s worth of garbage. The Bobs and Flying Turns were rollercoasters that my mother referred to as puke machines. You got into a little train of cars that would inch up the first big hill, and your anxiety intensified as you heard the chains ratcheting you up higher and higher. And then with a whoosh you went careening down in a tumble of confused gravity. In contrast the Wild Mouse was a neck snapper, which produced its thrills with rapid-fire sharp turns that would fling you around your car and give you one of those hot things in your neck.

In looking back on it, I cannot imagine that parents ever let their kids run wild at Riverview. The Ramble was definitely in the days before amusement parks embraced wholesome family values, staffed by dozens of fresh scrubbed and cheerful teenagers looking for their break into show business. Riverview was a classic and relentlessly seedy carnival, staffed by a cadre of heavily tattooed, gap toothed, stringy haired, malodorous, pants shiny with grease, cracked lips, cigarettes dangling, fingers yellowed with nicotine, leering and dissolute down-on-their luck parolees. I also bet that amongst the throngs of kids at Riverview there lurked an ecstatic population of pedophiles and other perverts, who couldn’t believe their good luck. I am surprised that nobody was groped, accosted or snatched. The Tunnel of Love (which I was never asked to go on) could possibly have been the most dangerous place on earth, followed by Aladdin’s castle, which featured poorly lit mazes with dead ends. And if that wasn’t scary enough, there was the safety issue. Was there any sort of safety inspection policy for the rollercoasters, all made from turn-of-the-century wooden planks? As you walked by the contraptions, you could feel them shudder and hear little squeaks and winces.

Aside from the rides, there were also sorts of carnival games like Skee ball, throwing balls at milk bottles, one of those hammer things where you could show off your strength by trying to ring the bell. You would see sailors carrying around big stuffed animals that they had won trying to impress their dates. I remember spending almost $5, my bonus allowance for being on the school honor roll, trying to win a red and white teddy bear. Somehow, I couldn’t seem to get the last milk bottle to tip over, and I finally asked the carny if I could just buy the damned thing, and then immediately had buyer’s remorse.

And then in the true spirit of a classic carnival, there was the freak show, which featured a group of unfortunate souls with weird skin diseases, like elastic man, or leopard lady. This was in an adult only tent, but one year I was able to slip in through a crack in the flap. There was some sort of announcer who would describe the “freak” in hushed tones, “Lady Leona was raised by leopards in Africa, and is now here at Riverview!!” A curtain would then open to reveal the poor woman with horribly mottled skin, who would awkwardly stand in some sort of ecru bathing suit while everyone gaped.

I was standing in the corner next to the side stage, where a magician was doing an act. This must have been a really bad magician if the only gig he could get was performing as an afterthought at a freak show. He was wearing some sort of tattered tuxedo and had a top hat. He said, “As a finale, I will need a volunteer from the audience.” When nobody was forthcoming, he turned to me and said, “I would like this young lady to be my assistant,” and suddenly there I was sharing the stage with Lady Leona at the Riverview freak show. “Now I would like you to close your eyes, and concentrate very hard on what you really, really want, and I will pull it out of my hat,” said the magician. Being the obedient girl that I was and an absolute sap, I closed my eyes so tightly and thought to myself, “I really want a Brownie camera, I really want a Brownie camera, oh please a Brownie camera.”

“Yes, I am getting your signals, now open your eyes and see what I have for you in my hat,” said the magician. I think that I still harbored some foolish hope that I would end up with a Brownie camera. The magician reached into his hat and with a dramatic flourish removed a pair of red lace crotchless underwear, waved them in front of the audience and then handed them to me.

The missing words in the following poem are all anagrams (like post, stop, spot) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters. One missing word will rhyme with either the preceding or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words using the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

As you ascend up the hill, your face turns ashen and —–,

Your knuckles turn white as you grip the hand rails,

Around you, you hear muttered —– of “Please don’t let me die.”

And you begin to wonder, who talked me into this and why oh why.

Your heart —– into your throat in that moment of stillness at the top of the hill,

You know there is no turning back, so you might as well enjoy the thrill

As you tip over the edge, you feel like puking as your stomach churns

But you hear shrieks and —– of laughter as you make breakneck turns,

You stagger off the coaster, nauseous, trembling and weak with fear,

But with good luck and an amnesiac memory —–, you’ll be back next year.

Answers: pales, pleas, leaps, peals, lapse

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The Bra Strap

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Liza Blue

I remember the day distinctly, it was the mid sixties and I was standing in the girls locker room with my shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal (to anyone who might want to notice) that I was wearing my first training bra. The gleeful shouts of my classmates echoed amongst the metallic clanking of the locker doors, and Kit Spaulding jostled me to get at her locker beneath mine. The training bra was little more than a glorified undershirt, whose only bralike feature was the clasp in the back. It was also unclear what I was in training for, since there was clearly nothing to “lift and separate” as advertised by Maidenform. Perhaps the advertising geniuses wanted to take a page out the cigarette industry and get pubescents hooked on their trainers early on and create a life long devotion to the Maidenform brand. Personally, the only thing that I was in training for was a slowly emerging pubescence that seemed to lag behind the other boy-crazy girls in my class, like Debbie Brown or Gail Chandler.

I remember looking down and noticing that the bra was adorned with a demur pink ribbon and feeling very conflicted. On the one hand, I certainly wanted to join my peer group and announce my anticipated puberty, but I wanted to do it quietly and discreetly without someone coming up from behind and snapping the strap and yelling, “snap, snap you are a turtle now!” I tried to figure out how I could somehow simultaneously whip off my school shirt and slip into my gym uniform, and then of course I would have to repeat the performance at the end of the day. I stood there quietly as the voices died down and my classmates skipped off to field hockey practice oblivious to my tense rite of passage. When no one was left in my locker row, I achieved my goal of anonymity, but then was disappointed that nobody had noticed.

I certainly did not realize that I was also entering into the confusing roles of the bra as function, fashion and sexuality. The word bra did not even come into existence until the early 1900s, when some one came up with the clever idea to support the breast from above (i.e. the “over the shoulder boulder holder”), rather than a corset that pushed up the breasts from below. Until the 1940s when the “life and separate” era began, breasts were generally not considered individually, but rather were referred to collectively as the bosom. The late 1940s also saw the introduction of the bikini, and the blurring of the distinction between outerwear and underwear began.

My concept at the time was that bra was most definitely underwear, but even so the rules were very confusing. The standard school outfit was a white cotton shirt, and the back of the bra was clearly visible beneath the shirt, particularly if you bent over or extended your arms. This was perfectly acceptable, and in fact this was one way of advertising that you were wearing a bra if your diminutive breasts were not apparent from the front or sides. Sometimes you could get a glimpse of the front of the bra – this was not optimal, but within the realm of acceptability. However, if you were wearing a sleeveless shirt and the bra strap wandered off your shoulder and was directly visible – well that was borderline trampy. Acquaintances might titter or feel sorry for you, but true friends would take you aside and would say with whispered urgency, “Your bra strap is showing!” The only thing that could be more embarrassing was pubic hair peeking out of a bathing suit. Panicked reparations would then ensue, which sometimes involved pinning the strap to the shirt. But then of course you could not let the pin show or pucker the shirt. Therefore you had to carefully fix the strap to the shoulder seam. There were certain recalcitrant bra straps that always slipped down the shoulder, and it was just safer to just throw them away. (In fact I do the same thing for underwear that habitually wedges or socks that fall into my shoes.)

The other acknowledged function of the bra was to address the visible nipple. Lightweight bras could certainly be very comfortable, but might not be up to the task if the weather turned nippy. In the 1970s Farrah Fawcett rose to fame based on a poster showcasing her tousled hair and gleaming smile. But I think that the unspoken appeal was the novelty of one very visible nipple beneath a clinging red bathing suit. I am still startled to see the sturdy nipples of both of the Williams sisters as they hustle around the tennis court. I just want to reach into the TV set, tap them on the shoulder and save them from embarrassment in front of millions, “Girls, your nipples are showing.”

Then of course there were rules governing bikinis, which were only considered outerwear when worn near water. I remember the movie Lolita where the young minx was lounging in the back yard in a tease of a white bikini top. However, the sprinkler was on and so what looked like a bra became acceptable outerwear. While bathing suits can be worn with impunity near the pool, sea or streamside, getting to and from the water requires a transitional outfit – the beach cover up, which is strictly limited to short errands such as pumping gas or returning a movie, particularly if the cover up is see through. For example, I have never seen anyone in a gossamer cover up in the public library or at a waitressed restaurant. We had a back yard swimming pool, and my mother would spend most of the summer in a bathing suit, which was far from a bikini, but more like a one piece romper. However, every time that she needed to go on an errand, she would dutifully change into a top and shorts (which were not that different from her romper), and then change back when she returned.

As confusing as this situation was, there was further upheaval a mere five years later when bras became the symbol of sexual repression and plumes of acrid smoke from burning rubber became the stuff of the nightly news. At this point I was in the college, and by the time the sexual revolution filtered down to my apolitical level, the only message that I got were that bras were now optional. Sounded good to me from a purely practical point of view – less clothes to buy and less laundry to wash. I did not have big breasts sloshing around that needed support and therefore bras seemed totally unnecessary. The visible nipple was still an issue, but that was solved by wearing thicker cotton shirts. Those Mexican wedding shirts were quite ideal – my favorite one was an otherwise light weight see-through cotton shirt but with two columns of embroidery positioned directly over the nipples.

After college I went to medical school and then onto motherhood, so I was completely distracted and unaware of the changing cultural mores. When I finally came up for air, I was appalled to notice teenagers walking around with visible bra straps – where were their friends to give them the heads up? But with careful scrutiny, I discovered that the bra strap taboo was over – in fact visible bra straps were everywhere, underneath camisoles, or criss cross straps beneath a tank top, where the visible straps could only have been intentional. But mentally I was still stuck in front of my grade school locker thinking, “Hey, your underwear is showing!” I interviewed a teenager who educated me on the different classifications of bras. Your underwear drawer now included bras with “cute” straps that were intentionally visible and color coordinated with the camisole or tee shirt. However, these were distinct from your everyday bras – ratty cotton bras with white elastic straps and yellowed out armpits were still worn, but only when there was no possibility that they would be seen. It reminded me of the old adage to always wear clean underpants to bed in case your house burned down and you were forced to flee into the streets with nothing but your underwear on.

Then there was the emergence of the bra as fashionable and sexy lingerie – seems our culture was finally catching up to the French here. While past Sears’ catalogs featured disembodied photographs of sedate bras with a dash of frill, Victoria’s Secret created a buzz by featuring full frontal photos of models wearing nothing but elaborate come-hither underwear and high heels. Now when I get dressed, the shoes are the last thing that I put on, and the first thing that I take off at the end of the day, so the combination of underwear and heels made no sense. Furthermore, instead of being a second tier tawdry underwear model, the top Victoria’s Secret model was touted with the same breathless admiration and celebrity as a swimsuit model. There was an episode of Seinfeld that captured this dilemma of bra as outwear vs. underwear. Elaine had a big-breasted childhood friend named Ellen Mishki who irked her by always going braless. Elaine decided to give her a white bra for her birthday, which Ellen then preceded to wear as outwear beneath an unbuttoned blazer. As she nonchalantly walked down the street, Elaine was even more peeved to realize that she got more stares and whistles than when she jiggled braless down the street.

Into this confusing mix came the sports bra, which by its very name suggested its ambivalence as under vs. outer wear. Ostensibly the sports bra was not designed to be sexy but engineered to tamp down the heavage of the cleavage, although Serena Williams seems to outheave even the best efforts of the Nike engineers. The convention seems to be that the sports bra can be worn as outerwear while jogging, extending its range beyond water limits of a swimsuit, but similarly, a sports bra is considered underwear in other venues. Recall the performance of Brandi Chastain, the US soccer player who scored the winning goal in the dramatic gold medal game against China in the 1999 world cup. She ran halfway across the field then took her shirt off and waved it over her head, revealing her black sports bra. Cultural anthropologists could probably create a thesis focusing on the demographics of those who regarded this performance as a strip tease versus a simple celebration. I was in the startled strip tease camp, while my daughter said, “Its no biggie, it’s just a sports bra, mom.” While it may have been a sports bra, the key fact seemed to be that she had taken off her shirt to reveal it, and that was stripping, regardless of what lay beneath.

Forty five years have passed since my first steps into the world of bradom, and like many other fashion trends, I have chosen to be a bystander. To me the everyday bra is still resolutely underwear, and an exposed bra strap still makes me anxious. I’m an old dog averse to new tricks and I like of the comfort of the bra as nothing more than a functional piece of clothing. It’s simpler that way.

The missing words in the following poem are all anagrams (i.e. post, stop, spot) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with the preceding or following line. Your job is to solve the missing word using the context of the poem. Scroll down for the answers.

Thoughts on Bras

1. Puberty is a complicated transition with many different —–

But a simple training bra is one common way it starts.

2. A visible bra —– used to make you want to cringe and die,

But what was underwear is now outerwear seen by every naked eye.

3. When a large breasted athlete has a problem with her cleavage

She wears a sports bra that —– her breasts to diminish any heavage.

Answers; parts, strap, traps

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Drawers

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Liza Blue

A prior post considered the cultural significance of the visible bra apparati, so I suppose that it should not be a total surprise that my mind wandered south and started to ruminate on underdrawers, and specifically consider the social messages sent by either conventional underwear, the thong or a visible crack. This was in part prompted by my daughter, home from college, who bent over to retrieve the lettuce from the bottom shelf of the fridge, revealing 0.5 inches of visible crack from her snug fitting jeans. I thought that she would be grateful that I would be saving her from social embarrassment, but when I pointed this out, she nonchalantly said, “What is the big deal, it’s just a crack.”

Once again in unfamiliar territory. Certainly when I was growing up, the crack was certainly underwraps, as was any direct visibility of underpants. Hip huggers were the style in the 1960s and I remember cutting off the waistband of blue jeans and trimming the jeans to a lower daring “waist” line. We would take the waistband, soak it in warm water and drape it over a ceiling pipe in the basement. Then we would hang from the pipe, hoping to stretch the waistband so that we could sew it back on to the new low cut jeans. I had some pants where the zipper probably measured less than 3 inches. The outfit was then topped off with a wide and thick leather belt with a huge brass buckle. But no matter how diminutive the zipper, I would have never tolerated visible underwear extending above the pants. In the 1980s there was a short lived solution to this problem – the body suit, where the front and back of the shirt were snapped together under the crotch like a toddler’s onesie, eliminating any possibility of delamination when you bent over.

So based on my daughter’s comment, the visible crack (more scientifically known as the intergluteal cleft) was now considered no more significant than, say, an elbow. The visible crack probably achieved its greatest publicity in an early Saturday Night Live skit, where Lisa Loobner and her boyfriend Todd could barely contain themselves when Dan Ackroyd, as the plumber, bent over to reveal a good 2-3 inches of crack, in fact “plumber’s crack” became part of the vernacular. However, I suspect that concepts of gluteal quality – i.e. color, consistency and contour – determined the social acceptability of the visible crack. There is certainly a difference between a taut teenage body and a big ole’ flabby, mottled pale white and slightly hairy crack.

What was the social message of a visible crack, was it really no big deal, or was it sending a flirty and naughty message? And if flirtation was part of the message, why was I receiving this message at breakfast on a weekday morning? It made me ponder on whether I would rather see a crack or a protruding thong, and I think that I am voting for the crack. The crack is an error of omission – I could imagine my daughter testing out jeans in the dressing room, bending over in several ways and then craning her neck over her should to see if her cleft showed, but there was no way that she could anticipate every circumstance and a simulated bend and reach into the salad drawer was not part of the repertoire. Now you might test thongs in the same way, but the thong seems riskier since it is not snugged in under the gluteal fold (distinguished from the cleft by its shallower depth and the fact that it runs horizontally compared to the “where the sun don’t shine” vertical cleft.) Furthermore, there are times when the visible thong seems entirely intentional, i.e. a high rise thong combined with low rise jeans. You might don a thong for a date night when you want to send out a sexual message, but for routine activities, the visible thong straddles that fine line between sexy confidence and skanky trampiness. I once saw a mother changing her child’s diaper on the carpet at the airport gate, and as she bent over, out popped the thong. Was she trying to send the message that even though she was a mother she still “had it” and was going to flaunt it? Well if so, good for her, but I didn’t want to see it. Here is my personal preference list from bad to better on the visual scale (all other things being equal): intentional thong, unintentional thong, granny pannies, inadvertent crack.

Internet commentary describes thongs as the solution to a visible panty line, apparently a situation so horrifying that it is known simply as VPL. So based on this logic, the thong becomes a risk benefit decision regarding the consequence of seeing the underwear outline vs. the thong itself. Taking a page for Law and Order, I would say, “that’s bootstrapping your honor,” i.e. creating a contrived nonsexual rationale for a basically sexual agenda, and of course there is the issue of visible thong line, VTL, or “vittle.” However, I will say that I have seen women in white pants who have made disastrous underwear choices. When I was working at the hospital, there was a certain nurse who had no clue that her patterned underwear were clearly visible through her tight polyester pants. One day, I noticed that she was wearing underwear that clearly said “Thursday” across the back, but since it was Friday, I wondered if she had forgotten to change up. Another day, she was wearing underwear that depicted the Chicago skyline, where the tall erect Sears tower was perfectly aligned with her cleft.

Now if you are truly concerned about VPL, I would think that the best solution would be to go commando. Marilyn Monroe did this with great success as she was sewn into a gold sequined gown she wore to serenade President Kennedy on his birthday. The commando option does beg the question why we are wearing underwear in the first place. I can imagine a variety of reasons: protection, reshaping the contour of the anatomy, modesty, basic mopping up action, habit and sexuality. Now protection is more of a male issue where there appears to be no clear winner in the boxers vs. tidy whiteys vs. the banana hammock debate. Reshaping the contour refers more to bras, which typically try to enhance and showcase a modest endowment. In contrast, reshaping the buttocks is the exact opposite – an attempt to discretely compress over-endowments using something along the lines of a girdle or stout “granny pannies.” Clearly the thong does not fit this role. Modesty applies to skirts where there is a possibility of a peek-a-boo. Commando-loving Marilyn apparently wore two pairs of underwear to keep the crowds at bay when she famously stood over the subway grate and coyly tried to control her billowing skirt. I can identify. In kindergarten I always had to wear a skirt, and I was grateful for my underwear since my classmate Eddie Friedlander always stood under the jungle gym to sneak a peek.

The mop up requires some absorbing action. Now the female anatomy has three outlets down there, two have sphincters, one does not, and thus its contents are more subject to the effects of gravity, if you catch my drift. In fact there is a whole industry around the panty liner, as a sort of belt and suspenders approach to the mop up. In my mind this is the clearest function of underwear and a role that cannot be achieved by the slender thong, even with a panty liner. Thong aficionados claim that they are comfortable once you get used to them, but that is an attribute only if there is some other function. That leaves habit and sexuality as the only rationales for thongs; neither of these roles is hostage to practicality or logic, and both are fueled by an entire industry devoted to decorating the derriere, so my plan for a nation wide commando action is doomed to failure.

The missing words in the following poems are anagrams (i.e. spot, stop, post) and the number of dashes indicates the number of words. One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the context of the poem. Scroll down for the answers.

Underwear has an important role that is sanitary

It ***** stuff that succumbs to forces that are gravitary

But the thong is only equipped with a tiny little *****

That might not be up to the task in case of mishap.

And then it ***** the gluteal cleft both dark and deep,

Frankly, I would prefer panties that occasionally creep.

Answers: strap, traps, parts

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Just Another Golden Sceptre

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Liza Blue

About 25 years ago, the entire United States appeared to be caught up in King Tut mania, and Chicago was no different. The Art Institute of Chicago was host to a traveling Tut exhibit, and the lines stretched around the block, full of people anxious to see the precious artifacts. My husband had been lucky to snag a couple of tickets through an alumni group, so off we went one spring evening. There we were jammed into the exhibit halls, thigh to thigh and cheek to jowl with other patrons, pressed against the glass display cases which held one fabulous gold object after another. I happened to be wedged against another couple, where the wife was clearly entranced by the exhibit and lingered breathlessly at each display case, much to the annoyance of her husband and those jostling behind her.

“Come on honey, let’s go,” he begged. “Haven’t you seen enough?”

“No there is another exhibit ahead of us that I have not seen, and this is our only chance,” she replied.

“I don’t think that we need to stay and see that, after all it is just another golden scepter.”

“Just another golden scepter,” the words struck me as extremely amusing and sad, emblematic of Americans’ appetite for wanton excess followed by boredom and ennui when it is presented to us, which only breeds a further insatiable desire. Here in this exhibit hall, the enduring craftsmanship of thousands of years, the achievements of an ancient culture, the back story of hundred and thousands of slaves preparing a tomb and riches to prepare a boy king for a peculiar afterlife – all overwhelmed by the dazzle of too many golden scepters. Unfortunately, I agreed with my jaded wedge-mate; I was ready to go.

Over the years as I have attempted to learn and become more aware of my natural environment, I have kept the phrase “just another golden scepter” in my mind. Everyday, our dear planet earth certainly hands us a profusion of golden scepters, even as we simply step outside the door to take the dog for a walk. I only have to look at my dog, joyously sniffing nature’s aromatic bounties to realize this, but I am typically just too lazy and complacent to appreciate the visual gifts before me. One of the distinguishing features of humans being should be our intellectual curiosity and powers of observation, gifted to us either through dumb luck, dogged evolution or some greater power, but if we can just remember to use them, we can transform the most quotidian occurrence into a marvel. Leaf through any natural history or wildlife publication and you will find a wealth of guided trips that will whisk you off to some exotic location to plop you down in front of one of the great wonders of the world. And while I am jealous of those trips, I also realize that with a little applied brain power I could probably find something just as spectacular (intellectually if not visually) in my own back yard.

So what is going on in my backyard? Probably everything, if I could sharpen my powers of observation. A minimal amount of applied brain power should be able to produce astonishing results. I would only have to look to Victorian England as an example of back yard natural history. The late 1800s have been referred to as the Era of Discovery, marked by the fruits of the burgeoning industrial revolution and world wide explorations. Here was Darwin and Lord Alfred Wallace developing theories of natural selection based on observations from the Galapagos and South Seas, respectively, with collections of exotic animals filtering their way back to home port. All an enterprising Englishman would have to do is hop on a boat and travel to the nearest exotic island, and with a little leg work and luck, could probably self name three entirely unique and glorious species. But perhaps these trips, which admittedly carried with them the threat of scurvy, bizarre tropical diseases and death, would be akin to the adventure travel of today, and many English opted for a more local pursuit, back yard beetle collecting. In his autobiography, Darwin describes his zealous beetle collecting:

“One day on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as well as the third one…”

Some can find nature without ever stepping outside. In first grade Frances had the assignment of preparing a quiz for their classmates where they would provide three clues to an animal. If the class could not guess, then the student would show a picture. The assembled parents were treated to the typical lions and tigers and bears, and then it was Frances’ turn. At the time, I was involved in a project on asthma and therefore had done some research on house dust mites, whose feces are a common allergy trigger. My daughter must have seen them.

She stood up and said, “What has six legs, no eyes and two million of them live in your bed?”

The class’ horror was compounded by the gruesome picture she then displayed – a largely magnified view of the microscopic translucent and hairy bug – and the thought of 2 million of them plus their feces mingling with you as you slept was creepily fascinating. So there you have it, you can even find nature compelling without getting out of bed.

This summer I was sitting at a picnic table eating lunch and reading a book. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bug marching across the table toward my sandwich. I casually swept the bug off the table, and then was immediately filled with remorse – I might have just casually dismissed one of the seven great wonders of the insect world. I spotted the insect squirming upside down in the leaf litter and carefully lifted it back to the table. This was one magnificent beetle, with tall legs that reminded me of the huge wheels on monster trucks that can handle any terrain. There were two long wildly swinging antennae and large clawed forearms that must have been uniquely adapted to something. I was happy to share my lunch with just another golden scepter.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. post, spot, stop) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters in the word. One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

I want to tell you a few things about asthma that might give you a fright

Most allergic coughing and sneezing is caused by the house dust —-.

Just think that every —- you go to sleep in your comfy bed,

You are sharing it with an eight legged animal with a hairy head.

And here is another —- that will surely make your skin crawl.

There are millions midst your sheets and that’s not all

You will —- a shriek and say no more information please,

When you learn that it’s their feces that’s making you sneeze.

Answers: mite, time, item, emit

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What Beaches Teach Us

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Liza Blue

Like many others in my peer group who first started typing on a manual typewriter, I have had an ambivalent love/mostly hate relationship with computers from the get go – continually feeling intimidated and frustrated with impenetrable jargon that requires a call to India to get a computer up and running, a new standard of typing excellence that tolerates no typos, and power point presentations with stunning visual effects to keep the audience from nodding off. However, for our son Ned, it has been pure love ever since the day we opened the door and let the devil walk in.

We started innocently enough with a reality game called Oregon Trail, where we were supposed to outfit a family traveling west on a wagon train. The only part of the game that Ned liked was the option of heading out to shoot game, leaving the women and children alone on the Conestoga wagon, succumbing to croup, dropsy, mosquitoes or random catastrophes, such as getting caught in a wagon wheel. We were constantly hungry because Ned was not a very good shot and would quickly run out of ammunition. Everyone in our wagon train would always die before Salt Lake City. My friends George and Martha played with their daughter Sarah, who actually successfully got her wagon train all the way to San Francisco without any attrition. She said that the key was to stop in Navoo and stock up on pemmican and buy some mules and a cart before heading across the plains. But Ned insisted that we could probably make it if we just bought more ammunition.

For Ned, this reality computer game served as a gateway to the true devil of online fantasy games, involving epic battles between vicious take-no-prisoners fantasy armies. The computer screen would be dripping with blood and emitting agonizing death throes. At one point Ned got very involved with a lurid game called Tribes. One night at our family dinner, he got up and excused himself saying, “I am going to be late for my team practice.” I assumed it was a school team, so was surprised when he informed me, “I have a practice with my online Tribes team because we have a match tonight at 11.” That was probably my breaking point. “Why can’t you get involved with something that has some sort of redeeming qualities?” I said. “Every time I go by your room I hear gunfire and it depresses me.”

He actually came up with a rather quick witted reply, “Look, I am learning life skills like how to strategize, plan ahead and be on a team. Besides I notice that you regularly watch Law and Order, and so it seems to me that you watch plenty of death and violence yourself.” I thought of trying to explain the difference between senseless anonymous killing and the obvious appeal of trying to unravel the motives of a tragically dysfunctional family, but felt that I would only be digging myself a deeper hole.

Time for Plan B. We were taking a spring break trip to Paris, and I thought that a side trip to the Normandy beaches would be an effective real life antidote to online violence. We arrived at Omaha beach on a beautiful spring day. The beach was pristine, peaceful and empty, an impossible contrast with images of the hell-on-earth D-Day beach. I had read the book the Longest Day on the plane ride over, which showed pictures of overwhelming carnage – abandoned vehicles spewing forth acrid smoke, barely living men staggering around in a trance-like state and of course plenty of dead men. The awkward bodies were partially submerged in sand, indicating that they must have been abandoned there for some time as the tide moved the sand around them. I did not know if the beach was now abandoned out of respect, or come a warmer day in summer, the beach would be swarming with vacationing families with the sidewalk filling with strolling sweethearts and vendors selling ice cream from pushcarts. It was hard to guess which scenario would be more poignant.

The next stop was the Omaha Beach museum. There seemed to be plenty of small museums in the area filled with relics collected by local residents ukviagras.com. This museum included various dioramas, but also pictures and letters that were found on the dead soldiers. It was at this moment that Ned began to appreciate the concept of a soldier as an individual and not an anonymous member of an expendable army. From here we went to Pointe-du-Hoc where there was a German pillbox overlooking a bluff. Peeking over the bluff, you could see that only the most heroic and downright lucky American could have ever made it to the top through the bullets raining down from the German pillbox. The top of the bluff was spring-green and grassy, but the pock-marks from incoming artillery shells were still easily visible. The whole area looked like a close up of the surface of a golf ball. That evening we stayed at a farmhouse bed and breakfast, which was used as some sort of make shift hospital during D-Day. Pictures on the walls showed the home overtaken by nurses and the wounded in the very rooms we were staying in. I felt that I had scored another direct hit with Ned.

However, nothing could have prepared us for the emotional wallop of our visit to the American Cemetery the next day. The last turn in the long forested driveway opened onto seemingly endless rows of glistening tombstones. We walked quietly through the rows, touching the tops of some of the stones or looking down to read the names of the fallen. And just when I thought I could not bear it any longer, we turned the corner and saw the cemetery continuing unabated for another several acres. Before we had left, our friend Ray Murphy mentioned that his uncle was buried in this cemetery and I thought it would make it a nice focus if we could find his grave. Ray’s uncle had died before he was born and in fact there was no one left in his family who had known his uncle personally. This is probably the fate of many in this cemetery as the living memory of World War II slowly slips away. Somehow this seemed to make it more important to find a specific grave and bring it back to life as a real person and a family member. Although Murphy is not a particularly unusual name, I was still surprised when the database showed that there were several dozen Murphys buried here. Unfortunately, I did not have the details on Ray’s uncle, but thought it would be sufficient to find a representative grave. We did indeed find a Murphy grave, placed some flowers and took some pictures. Even though it turned out that we had guessed wrong, it really didn’t matter since Ray was immensely touched. Even so, I wanted to track down the true living relatives, or relatives of any of the other deceased, to let them know that their Murphy was well taken care of and appreciated in this lovely and heartbreaking cemetery on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach.

We drove into town for dinner that night and unanimously agreed to forego the German restaurant and settled for a quiet dinner at an Italian restaurant. We didn’t talk too much about the day or its implications, and in fact, when I mention this story to Ned, he claims that he does not recall too many details of this visit at all. However, shortly thereafter I was gratified to realize that the gun noises stopped emanating from his room, he had dropped out of his Tribe and ever since then his focus has remained on online sports games. Mission accomplished.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. post, stop, stop) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters. One missing words with rhyme with either the preceding or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the context of the poem. Scroll down for the answers.

On D-Day the infantryman heads for Omaha Beach full of anxiety and hopes,

Knowing that his legacy as a solider will depend on how he —–

With bloody beaches and slaughtered bodies strewn across the sand.

While the enemy has his —– trained on him and death is near at hand.

He claws his way up the bluff and collapses, momentarily safe behind a —– of trees.

He pauses to thank the Lord on quaking and bended knees.

Answers; copes, scope, copse

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Baseball, Earlobes and Running Backward

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Liza Blue

Chapter 1.

In 2008, a Cubs road game scheduled for Houston got rescheduled in Milwaukee due to Hurricane Ike pounding the Texas coast. Therefore on a beautiful early fall afternoon, Nick and I spontaneously decided to breeze up to Brewer’s field rather than trying to slog our way through traffic to the friendly confines of Wrigley field.

I hadn’t been to a professional base ball game for a good 20 years, but I actually know a lot about baseball, mostly learned from grandfather in the 1960s as we sat and watched the Cubs play after big Sunday lunches. I remember that I stunned a high school softball coach when I was able to explain the nuances of dropped third strike, infield fly rule and the fact that the batter has to make an honest effort to avoid being hit by a pitch. But I had also had learned that without a time constraint, baseball could be maddeningly slow and you needed to have other diversions handy. Typically this was a nap, waking up just in time for a dramatic ninth inning. But different strategies were needed for the live event. Before we left for Milwaukee, I frantically searched for my old baseball mitt – unfortunately unsuccessfully. Besides being eagerly ready for a fly ball, you could also buy a program and keep score professionally, which my mother had taught me many years ago (why do you suppose that a strikeout is a “K”), but there were no Cubs/Houston programs for this hastily rescheduled game in Milwaukee. Fortunately, I had remembered to bring my binoculars and knew that I could probably while the way the hours by people-watching.

We settled into our seats along the third base line along with about 20,000 other Cubs fans, all presumably joining us in playing hooky. The man sitting next to us looked a bit sheepish as he arrived straight from his office wearing his coat and tie. As I scanned the crowd for good people watching, I was transported back 30 years to a Cubs game that I went to with my younger brother Tim. We were in the midst of a summer long discussion about ear lobes – which Tim had generally categorized as either “droopers” or “connectors.” For example, statues of Buddhas all have exceptionally long droopers, since this is supposed to symbolize a wise man who is “all hearing.” As a modern point of reference, Lyndon Baines Johnson had pendulous lobes that seemed to get droopier every year.

Another prototypical drooper is John Madden, although I must warn you that you have to catch his lobes at the beginning of Sunday night football game because they are swaddled in headphones for the rest of the game.

Connectors are characterized by an ear lobe that is fixed to the face along the length of the jaw line. The ranks of celebrity connectors are thin, perhaps because droopers are a genetically dominant trait, but Gwyneth Paltrow is sporting a nice set of connectors.

At that particular game, Tim and I could hardly contain our excitement when right across the aisle from us we spotted a spectacular set of droopers sitting next to equally spectacular set of connectors. I have no other memories of that game, but that is often the case with baseball games – there is plenty of time to do other things and the baseball game becomes an occasionally entertaining backdrop.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. like post, spot, stop) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the context of the poem. Scroll down to the bottom of the essay for the answers.

How would you categorize that useless blob handing from your —?

Does Johnsonian or Maddenesque come to mind, or even chandelier?

— they so long that they swing and sway as you begin to dance?

Or could Lilliputians host a picnic on this vast and fleshy expanse?

Look at a Buddha statue from a bygone — do your lobes look the same?

If any of these are true, you’re automatically in the Drooper Hall of Fame.

Chapter 2.

The people watching was mostly unsuccessful, so I turned to the baseball game. There was not much going on – scoreless in the third inning – so I decided that I would intently watch one individual player. In a prior Cubs game, I had decided to focus my attention on the second baseman Ryne Sandberg. It must have been a low scoring game, since even though Ryne batted near the top of the batting order, he was only up to bat 4 times in the entire game. He never got on base. In the field, no ball was ever hit to him, so for the entire game all he did was stand around and swing the bat a couple of times – he never had to run and I doubt if he cracked a sweat during the entire game, all the while earning tens of thousands of dollars. For this game, I chose to focus on the Cubs’ left fielder, Alfonso Soriano. He ran around a little bit, mostly to and from the outfield, caught a few balls, and maybe got a hit, but the captivating action was how many times he adjusted his crotch – in fact he did it constantly. It wasn’t as if his junk had gotten disorganized because he had sprinted or made a dramatic slide, he felt compelled to rearrange even if he was standing perfectly still. In the business world, this would be akin to the presenter squirming and tugging on his crotch before every new power point slide.

The other notable quirk was that Alfonso, as well as most of the other players, were constantly chewing or spitting – tobacco, gum, sunflower seeds or liquids – baseball players are truly oral folk. I spent some time looking at the dugout with my binoculars and was horrified to see how untidy and slippery it looked.

It was now about the 6^th inning, the Cubs were ahead, and the Cubs pitcher, Ryan Dempster, had a no hitter going, which was quite remarkable since his team mate Carlos Zambrano had pitched a no hitter the night before. But still there was plenty of time for pleasurable day dreaming. I have never cared that passionately about baseball one way or another – but there are certainly many that get all misty eyed talking about how baseball is American’s favorite pastime. The word “pass time” would seem to undermine the image of baseball of a demanding sport, but it is probably America’s oldest organized sport and as such has contributed to the English vernacular:

Can of corn (easy fly ball)
Texas leaguer (short fly ball that falls in for a hit)
Frozen rope (hard hit line drive)
Ducks on the pond (base runners)
Dying quail (similar to a Texas leaguer, but droopier)
Ball park estimate/figure (based on the fact that baseball parks are all different sizes)
Can’t hit the broadside of a barn (incompetent pitcher)
Stick a fork in him (similar to testing meat to see if it is done, to assess whether or not the pitcher should be removed)
Ride the pines (be a bench warmer [in itself a baseball expression])
Throw someone a curve
Step up to the plate
Out in left field/come from left field
Play hard ball
Be a switch hitter
Touch all bases
Right off the bat
Keep your eye on the ball
Out of your league/bush league
Bat one thousand, etc, etc.

In fact, the most recent 2008 edition of Dickson’s Baseball Dictionary has expanded their listings to 10,000 baseball expressions. I just ordered a copy.

With linguistic musings exhausted and the no hitter gone by the 7^th inning, I looked for new entertainment. I began to further ponder on my great idea to improve baseball. I first began to think about this when I was a slow moving right handed batter in our ladies softball league. I was always jealous of those left handers who were at least two steps closer to first base, and thought this could possibly account for the fact that I was routinely thrown out as I lumbered down to first base. Our genial coach pointed out that I could best address this situation by becoming a switch hitter. Given my limited right handed skills, I knew that this wasn’t going to work, so I came up with a plan to have a game where you would run the bases in reverse. Let those left handers run that extra distance to third base!

This did not seem to be that much more preposterous than the designated hitter discrepancy between the American and National league, which has many subtle, but major impacts on the way baseball is played. In the American league, pitchers are not pulled for pinch hitters and the line up of batters is much more formidable. Why not throw another curveball and run the bases clockwise for a change? While left handed pitchers are at a premium, there are limited opportunities for left handed infielders – with the exception of the first baseman. Left handers are mostly delegated to the outfield. This would all be changed if you ran to third base first. Both the short stop and the 2^nd baseman would almost have to be left handed in order to have the optimal angle to throw it to third base for a routine ground out.

This also lead me to consider that in the right handed dominated world, the natural tendency is to run counterclockwise – for example, all races in the Olympics are run counterclockwise, which disadvantages left handers/footers in general. So maybe every four years they should run the races in the opposite direction. Whoever invented the clock made the seemingly arbitrary and counter-intuitive decision to have the clocks run from left to right. And then why do we write from left to right – certainly there are many languages that read from right-to-left, notably Hebrew and other Middle Eastern languages, but clocks all run the same direction.

So many unanswered questions, but I ran out of time. There it was, the last fly ball to Soriano and the Cubs won, essentially burying the Houston Astros on their way to winning the pennant. We stood up, brushed the peanut shells off our clothes, kicked the drink cups under the seats and made our way to the exits. Can’t beat a beautiful afternoon at the old ball park!

——- me a place in the baseball Hall of Fame,

Because I have a great idea to spice up the game,

This year, why not run the bases in ——-,

Run clockwise instead and get to third base first!

Even the fan who ——- the game knows it is an idea worth trying,

Because baseball is slow and boring and fan interest is dying.

Answers:

Chapter 1: ear, are, era

Chapter 2: reserve, reverse, reveres

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A Whiter Shade of Pale

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Liza Blue

As I sort through the various missed opportunities and regrets in my life, I keep coming back to two things; the time that I absolutely blew my college interview at Stanford (when asked to describe “who I was” to some pompous interviewer, I said, “that’s personal and I don’t wish to discuss it!), and the fact that I never saw the Beatles live. I was first introduced to the Beatles at Ty Winterbotham’s house. There was some sort of slumber party going on and she had the 45 of “I Saw Her Standing There” blaring into her living room. It was a magical moment as everyone danced together and shouted the lyrics “When she crossed that room, my heart went boom and I held her hand in my-eeen!” Please note that the early Beatle lyrics were nothing but doggerel.

While I was not a passionate Beatles fan, they did hold an abiding interest. John was married, Ringo was just too butt ugly to generate any appeal and Paul was of course the cutest. That left George as the more creative favorite. As a parent, I kept impressing on my young children that it was very important that they know all the names of the Beatles, and I would periodically spring pop quizzes in the car. Unfortunately Frances always confused George Harrison with George Bush! My father initially dismissed the Beatles as freaks, and confidently stated, “They won’t last a year.” It must have been 1964, because I triumphantly remember buying the album Beatles ’65.

We did manage to go to a few concerts. The Dave Clark Five stands out, because they were thought to be a knock off of the Beatles. I remember closing my eyes at the concert and pretending they were the Beatles, but the effort fell short. Another concert I distinctly remember was the Rolling Stones. My mother had agreed to drive us down to McCormick place, but announced that she was not going to waste her money on this and would spend the time at a museum instead. However, when we arrived, she reframed the event as a sociology field trip and decided that she would try and sneak into the concert. We wished her good luck and scurried to our seats on the main floor.

At the first chord, probably “I can’t get no satisfaction,” we started screaming ourselves silly, for no other reason that we were so thrilled to be part of a joyous mass hysteria.

When I see the black and white footage of the Beatles arriving in the United States, I think how great it would be to one of the teenagers in one of the crowd shots – a teenager with smudged, tear-streaked cheeks, wearing a cute buttoned-up shirt rumpled by the press of the crowd, hanging over a fence in the remote hopes of spotting one of the Fab Four. Now that would be something to show the kids. If only I had gone to Woodstock. In the middle of the Woodstock sound track, as an illustration of the mayhem, an announcer says, “Allan Fay, come to the blue tent, it’s a bummer, man.” Just think, it could have been, “Bobbie Brown, come to the tent, it’s a bummer man.”

As we limply exited the auditorium, we found my mother totally pleased with herself. She had indeed managed to sneak in. She told the usher that she was ticketless because she had left the auditorium to deal with her splitting headache. She then produced the bottle of aspirin that she had just bought as a prop. She feigned a grimace of agony, and as an added touch right out of an Excedrin TV ad, lightly pressed her fingertips to her temples.

She then said that she had left her young daughter inside, who was probably beside herself with worry at that point. The overwhelmed usher fell for it, and let her in. She made her way to the top row of the topmost balcony, “I was in hysteria heaven,” she exulted, “The blond singer looked exactly like Lulu Runnells!” The blond singer was Brian Jones who would die of a drug overdose the following year, and Lulu Runnells was one of Lake Forest’s most fashionable socialites.

They say that every generation must have its own music, but the rock and roll of the 60s has transcended generations. The Beatles and Rolling Stones are all well-represented on my kids’ iPODS, and they are always amazed when I already know the lyrics to “their” music. I can even introduce them to some new music. One of them was Procul Harum, who were something of a one hit wonder with their song “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” also known as AWSoP on the internet fan club site.

With the exception of Louie, Lou-ay, one of the advantages of early 60s music was that the lyrics could be distinctly heard and understood. But by the time of the 1967 release AWSoP, while you could still hear the words, the lyrics had moved far beyond the hand-holding innocence of the early 60s. There is much discussion of the meaning of AWSoP. Two theories are most plausible to me. One is that the “Whiter Shade of Pale” refers to Marilyn Monroe and her doomed love affair with JFK; the crowd calling out for more refers to her memorable and slutty singing of Happy Birthday, Mr. President, to a sold out crowd in Madison Square Garden. The other obvious theory is that the “Whiter Shade of Pale” refers to cocaine, and the lyrics are a delusional mess. I am very literal and linear person, so the following fanagram represents an attempt to tidy up the lyrics.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (post, stop, spot) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following lines. Your job is to figure out the words from the context of the poem. Scroll down for the answers.

I hit my head bang bango, while turning cartwheels ‘cross the floor,

I begin to —— like I’m seasick, but the crowd calls out for more,

The room was humming harder, as my soul did —— away,

When we called out for another drink the waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later as the doctor told his tale

That my face, at first just ghostly, turned a —— shade of pale

Real lyrics:

We skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor

I was feeling kinda seasick, as the crowd calls out for more.

The room was humming harder as the ceiling flew away

When we called out for another drink the waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later as the miller told his tale

That her face, at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale

Answers: writhe, wither, whiter

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Hail to Thee Fat Person!

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Liza Blue

Allan Sherman, of Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh fame, enjoyed an intense but brief popularity, releasing three albums in 1963 and then a rapid decline and premature death at age 49. But it is still easy to identify an Allan Sherman fan some 46 years later. I was standing in a buffet line with a medical colleague and a third person came up and said, “I always appreciate a good pair ‘o docs,” and both of us the recited the complete stanza, “a pair o’ noia is just a bunch of mental blocks, and when Ben Casey meets Kildare, that’s a ‘pair o’ docs.”

Allan Sherman was a staple of my childhood since my mother idolized his word play and parodies, a talent that was right smack in her wheelhouse as she routinely wrote similar songs for birthdays and other family events. An Allan Sherman biography notes that he started as a producer of the quiz show, “I’ve Got a Secret,” which landed him in Hollywood where he entertained at parties, including his neighbor Harpo Marx, and ba-da-bing all of he suddenly had a record contract and became a bi-coastal toast of the town. Even as a ten year old, I knew something extraordinary was happening when my mother put on her heels and poppit faux pearls to go downtown to a nightclub to hear Allan Sherman perform. My parents never strayed from the comfy confines of their leafy suburb and rarely socialized with anybody beyond two or three degrees of separation. Who knows, there might have been some swingers at a nightclub! Maybe my mother was a bit jealous of Allan Sherman, but probably more excited that this sort of clever talent was well appreciated.

Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh apparently reached number 3 on the popular record charts, surpassing Elvis Presley and the early efforts of the Beatles. The song, which is set to the tune of a Ponchielli opera, recounts the misery of a child just arriving at a summer camp. “I went hiking with Joe Spivey, he developed poison ivy. Do you remember Leonard Skinner, they’re organizing a search party after dinner.” It is hard to explain the popularity of this song – I certainly don’t think that it was his best – but one commentator thinks that it touched on the universal themes of fitting in, and in fact, assimilation was a central theme in Allan Sherman’s life. His early songs were mostly parodies on Jewish folk songs and culture. “Hava Nagila” became “Harvey and Sheila” and Alouetta became “Al ‘n Yetta.” “Frere Jacques” became Sarah Jockman and Jerry Bachman exchanging gossip (How’s your cousin Shirley, well she got married early) and God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman turned into “God Rest You Jerry Mendelbaum.”

However, Allan Sherman expanded beyond Jewish folk tunes – there were send ups of suburbia (Here’s to the Crabgrass), space travel and aliens (Six Foot Two, Solid Blue) and technology (Automation). He frequently poked fun at himself. In “Hail to Thee Fat Person” Sherman explained that his rotund figure was essentially the result of the Marshall Plan – his mother constantly told him to clean his plate because there were people starving in Europe. In fact due to his efforts and those of other tubby patriots, “we kept this country out of war!”

Allan also went were the where the original lyrics and his fervid imagination took him. The song “You Went the Wrong Way Old King Louie,” was one of his better efforts, set to the tune of “You’ve Come a Long Way From St. Louis.” This song was one of our family favorites.

You went the wrong way old King Louie, you made the population cry

‘Cause all you did was sit and pet with Marie Antoinette at your place in Versailles.

Now we’re gonna take you and the queen down to the guillotine somewhere in the heart of town.

And when that fella’s through with what he’s going to do you’ll have no place to wear your crown.

And now the country has gone kablooey -To King Louie was say fooey you disappointed all of France

But what can you expect from a king who wears silk stockings and pink satin pants.

Allan Sherman was the master of the unexpected rhyme, which turned the lyrics from stupidly stupid to funnily stupid. As you listened to the song, you would hear the word France and know a rhyme was coming, and you might anticipate dance, chance or evey romance, but you would never expect that it could be pants. “C’est Si Bon,” became “I See Bones,” about a radiologist who sang, “I see things in your peritoneum that belong in the British Museum.” I could picture Allan Sherman thumbing through his rhyming dictionary trying to find a rhyme for peritoneum. Presented with few choices, he figured out a way to work “museum” into the verse.

Similarly, my mother had a pink rhyming dictionary always at the ready near the kitchen telephone. I think that her parodies peaked with a birthday song that she wrote for one of her friends with the improbable name of Hempie, who had just had a bout with jaundice after eating some bad sea food.

“Hempie you excite us when you talk of hepatitis,

Your stool they had to study, since your eyeballs were so cruddy”

She was so taken with the excite us/hepatitis doublet that she used it almost annually as she serenaded Hempie.

“Hempie you no longer can excite us since you don’t have hepatitis

When your eyeballs stopped being yellow, you became a mellow fellow.”

Sherman also wrote entirely new music which set him free from the limitations of a parody. I think that his tour de force was “Good Advice” a song running about as long as Don McLean’s American Pie, where he provided advice to the great inventors throughout history. Sherman encouraged Ben Franklin to go fly a kite even though it was raining, he told Isaac Newton to go take a nap under the apple tree to avoid getting sunburned, he pointed out to Otis that his moving box would work better if it went up and down instead of from side to side. He gave his best piece of advice to the caveman Ooga MaGook who was uncertain what to do with his big square stone with a hole in the middle. “Round off those corners, and Ooogie Baby, you’ve got the wheel!” He would finish each verse with a two liner praising the advice – “I’m so worldly wise, I deserve a Nobel prize,” or “Harvard offered me a phi beta kappa key.” I routinely use one of these lines as a staple of birthday songs that I have written – “The world is a better place since you joined the human race.” (My other favorite line was written by my friend Sallie, “You are so very kind, you’d give your eyeballs to the blind.”)

After poking around the internet, I found a YouTube video of Allan Sherman singing, which made more sense of the theme of assimilation. Allan was singing with Dean Martin and Vic Damone, two of the coolest cats of the mid 1960s. You sensed that Allan thought that he was finally part of the Hollywood elite, but it also looked like he was just trying a bit too hard, and that it just wasn’t going to happen. Dean and Vic looked donair and elegant in their tuxedos, and the short, fat, Sherman with a buzz cut and heavy black glasses just looked out of place. The two men also had beautiful voices, and even though Allan sang on key, he really was not a great singer. Sherman was eagerly grinning at his songs and glancing over at Dean and Vic, asking for approval. Although Dean and Vic were smiling, it really looked more like they were laughing at him. I think that Allan had failed to see the distinction between being part of the elite crowd and a buffoonish mascot, easily disposable. Check out the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vR9cT6Jyg4

After his initial three top selling albums, his songs became more pointed and bitter, perhaps because he found that the success he so coveted was actually hollow. The Kennedy assassination soured the country’s mood as well. He slipped into obscurity and found himself reduced to writing jingles for television commercials. If Allan Sherman didn’t write it, he most certainly inspired the Burger King song from the 1970s:

“Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us.”

All we ask is that you let us do it your way.”

The missing words in the following poem are all anagrams (i.e. like post, stop, spot) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with the previous or following line. Your job is to figure out the words based on the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

After Word War II, food was scarce and Europeans were starving and thin,

That’s when Allan Sherman says his weight problems began to —–.

His mother said, “people are starving so you must clean your plate,

So he started to —– on pies and sweets and generally overate.

This was the message of the Marshall plan that he could not ignore

He was told that —–fat is what keeps this country out of war!

Answers: begin, binge, being

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The Warm Spot in the Lake

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Liza Blue

I am a Midwestern girl who spent her vacations fearfully swimming in the fresh water lakes of the upper peninsula of Michigan. Bobbing in a boat offshore, the surface water was a rich dark blue, but beneath the color quickly turned to a rusty brown and then inky blackness with rays of light that emanated upwards from a central spot. In my suburban world, I was accustomed to the chlorination of swimming pools painted a reflective blue, so crystal clear you could call heads or tails on a dime dropped into the deep end.

But swimming in the lake left absolutely everything to the imagination. Jumping in, your pale white distorted legs below you turned a rottenish shade of brown as they hung above the abyss. I was most fearful of something touching my legs, whether a stray fish, an odd piece of flotsam, but especially seaweed. I imagined that seaweed had a cunning strategy to draw me under, perhaps borne of many fishing expeditions where yards of seaweed would entangle a fish or lure. I shuddered to think of a frond gently stroking my leg, sending me into a thrashing frenzy, which would further entrap and suck me under like quick sand. Continue reading →

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In the Fold with My Peeps

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Liza Blue

My interest in knitting starting innocently enough some 30 years ago when we were visiting Ireland. The island was awash in American tourists whose first order of business was the purchase of a hand knit Irish sweater which was then worn throughout the trip. I thought a nice riff on this tradition would be to buy yarn and then make my own hand knit Irish sweater while I was traveling through the country. My interest blossomed from there as I caught the craze for worsted knit vests inspired by the movie Chariots of Fire and Brideshead Revisited.

Somewhere I the mid 1980s, my “interest” in knitting evolved into a passion, from there perhaps into an obsession with a slight hint of a budding pathology. I remember buying my first basket to store wool for future projects. I blew through this basket and eventually dedicated a whole room with elaborate shelves to house my collection. I still thought it was my little secret, and was aghast to find that my husband began to budget “wool” as a line item. Fortunately, he cheerfully concluded that the psychiatry bill would have been higher.

At the start of a knitting project I would spend some quality time with my growing collection of pattern books and wool, touching and reorganizing them, trying to figure out the best strategy. I typically had a couple projects going at once, usually a simple one that was readily portable, and a more complex one with multiple different colors that usually was permanently spread throughout the TV room. The many projects were like airplanes in a holding pattern over a busy airport, eagerly waiting for the signal to land. However, I frequently exercised my right to wave them off even as they made the final wheels-down approach.

I made dozens of sweaters, and although I usually could find somebody to wear one, it typically wasn’t the person it was originally intended for. I then segued to making scarves (which always fit) and this is where things really got out of hand. I was working from home at this time, and I found that when I began a work project, I would be totally committed to the exclusion of almost all else until the project was done. However, in between projects I had some down time to get recharged for the next effort. Scarves needed only a ball or two of wool, and thus I could use my down time to go to the wool store to get just one more ball – but in reality I would rarely leave without spending at least one hundred dollars. I had scoped out the local yarn stores, but discovered that the store with the most extensive inventory was located over an hour away on the north side of Milwaukee, where I always stopped on vacation as we drove north to the upper peninsula Michigan. One time I was in serious need of a work break and decided to take this extensive road trip. When I got to Milwaukee I was overwhelmed with disappointment to find the store closed for inventory. I got back into the car and decided to take a little nap before the empty-handed drive home. I woke up three hours later from such a deep sleep that I needed to brush my teeth. When I finally got back home Nick greeted me with great relief; in my prolonged absence he could only come up with two very unattractive scenarios. Either I had gone on an over-the-top wool spree or that I had been in a car accident. It never occurred to him that I would drive to Milwaukee to take a nap.

By subscribing to knitting magazines I became aware of a local knitting convention and have made a yearly trek to participate in this slice of life experience. A knitting convention clearly self-selects for the dedicated if slightly nutty knitter; the average knitter is going to find everything she needs at the local wool shop or on line. In fact the most compelling reason to go to this convention is to mingle with people that share your odd ball passion, a place where you could proudly wear a pair of crocheted shorts without embarrassment, except maybe explaining the unfortunate color choice.

In fact, many of the attendees, mostly older women, use the convention to showcase their latest creations. Similar to my efforts, most of the sweaters are ill fitting, so the convention floor is filled with lumpy dumpy women wearing lumpy dumpy sweaters. Furthermore, the convention is always held at the end of August, definitely not the weather for bulky sweaters. This year, the conditions were particularly sweltering, but one women proudly walked into the convention wearing hand knit gloves. One year, I walked from the parking lot to the convention next to a man elaborately dressed up like a superhero, with high boots, long black cape and a cowl. At first very odd, but then I realized that the knitting convention was sharing space with a comic book convention, and this man was in his element. Presumably, he could not wear his outfit around town, but here, among his congregation there was no judgment. He was in the fold with his peeps amoxicillin 500mg.

The knitting convention draws a very menopausal crowd; knitting still has the image of an activity for brownie scouts earning a Home Ec merit badge or a fuddy duddy habit for retired women with nothing better to do. In fact, if you put everyone at the convention through a juicer, I bet you would end up with less than a cup of estrogen.

Additionally, there are no men at the convention, except for a few clearly bored husbands slumped in chairs minding large bags of wool. as their wives go on additional forays. Most of the vendors are women who have shops with overly cute names, like “Adorable Ewe,” “Knit Knack” or “I’ll Keep You in Stitches.” I bet that many of them started the stores as a hobby and then brought their retired husbands along to ring up the sales.

The wool is clearly the star of the show, but there are other vendors who take advantage. I am reminded of remoras, a fish that attaches to a shark in order to feast off of the shark’s sloppy seconds. These vendors are always working hard to come up with new ideas for the hard core knitter who has already made sweaters for everyone in her life, even getting ahead of herself by knitting for as yet unborn grandchildren. Knitting colorful Fair Isle socks has become a popular trend, but the obvious downside (aside from having to knit two socks) is that all of your meticulous knitting is immediately covered up with shoes. One enterprising vendor was trying to take advantage of her captive audience by selling see-through plastic books. This year I saw someone who had basically knit a whole farm scene and another who had knit a garden. There was also a book of patterns devoted to knitting cakes and cupcakes. I’m trying hard not to be judgmental, but if Nick saw me knitting a chocolate cake with sprinkles, he might think that a psychiatrist would be a wise investment after all.

Then there is a whole category of accessories – weird buttons made out of old typewriter keys, or knitting needles with carved animals on top. Other vendors focus on the consequences of excessive knitting – a special brace for your hand to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome, a massage therapist offering a free massage for overworked shoulder and neck muscles, and a booth set up by a chiropractic association touting the advantages of readjustment.

This year there was a booth where a women was demonstrating a device to keep your ball of wool from completely unraveling as you were knitting, which is only a problem if you are using very slinky wool. She was equipped with a microphone head set, and was one of the few people in the room who was young, tan, toned and wearing a clingy and revealing top. She would fit right into a car show, but her whole effect was lost on this audience. The device was a clear plastic ball that you put your ball of wool in, and she enthusiastically demonstrated it by cupping and caressing the balls. Her performance reminded of the movie Sleeper, a Woody Allen movie that featured the Orgasmatron Orb. Woody is disguised as a robot and is clearly distracted as he passes the Orb around a cocktail party.

Knitting has been a great ride for the past 30 years, but about two years ago the feverish pace broke and I have reached a more comfortable middle ground. I was fairly successful in selling the scarves, but then began to have nightmares that all the scarves would simultaneously start unraveling with hordes of shoppers showing up on my doorstep demanding a refund. I then segued into knitting multicolored and complex afghans, which I often give as wedding gifts or contribute to silent auctions.

Yes, I still crank out an afghan or two per year, and there are plenty of circling projects, but wool is no longer a line item in our budget. But regardless of how much I continue to knit or not knit, I will always go to the convention to appreciate the knitted cupcakes and orgasmic wool holders, to soak up the common understanding as I return to the fold with my peeps. The other day I was reading a book that was profiling some of nature’s quirks, including blood sharing among vampire bats. The anecdote concluded, “The bats don’t regurgitate blood for just anyone … Clearly, we have more to learn about food sharing among vampire bats.” Personally, I felt that I had already learned more than I needed to know about vampire bats, but this statement delivered at a convention of fellow chipoterans would produce confirmatory head nods and murmers of approval. And then there is the television ad where a man with a lovely British accent announces, “For the past 17 years I have been obsessed with reinventing the vacuum cleaner.” While I am tempted to snicker at both of these people who may be a bit myopic in their focused professions, I realize that I should hold back. After all, I have entire basement full of wool.

The missing words in the following poem are all anagrams (i.e. like spot, post, stop). The number of dashes indicates the number of letters. One anagram will rhyme with either the preceding or following line. Your job is to figure out the words from the context of the poem. Scroll down for the answers.

When does your hobby —– to go out of control, when moderation is not enough?

It’s when you need a line item in your budget, or a special room for all your stuff.

It’s when you overindulge your passion and go on a buying —–

And friends and family worry that you are approaching a lunatic fringe.

That’s when you go to a convention to experience a friendly attitude change

There’s nothing like —– among people who don’t think your hobby is so strange.

Answers:begin, binge, being

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